Winter by Jean-Honore Fragonard

Winter by Jean-Honore Fragonard, oil on canvas 1755, is an 18th century Rococo genre painting depicting a young girl who has fallen in a freezing, panoramic winter landscape. Two impish children hold a feathered hat over her head while a small dog looks anxiously on. Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) was a late Rococo painter of the French Ancien Régime whose works were distinguished by painterly facility and exuberance. Originally a pupil of Chardin, Fragonard produced a large number of works until the growing fashion of neo-classicism and the French Revolution forced him to flee into obscurity. Fragonard’s reputation revived in the late 19th century, when his sense of colour, relaxed hedonistic subject matter and painterly brushwork inspired new generations of the Impressionists such as Renoir.